This article approaches the Italian and Brazilian health policies based on a historical overview of the economic and political conjunctures from the 18th century to the 20th century, so as to identify elements that signal similarities and differences in order to understand the materialization process of the right to health. The present study is a descriptive research with a qualitative approach. The data source includes official documents and a literature review in a historical perspective. The data analysis is carried out based on Everyday Bioethics. The results show that in both States the right to health is rendered concrete as a result of the workers' initiative, with the aim of satisfying one of its dimensions: the right to health assistance. The following aspects were observed: similarities in the social protection models, the importance of Italy in the Brazilian construction process of the right to health, differences between the new governmental actions established after the sanitary reforms, and the need to confront, by means of a political system of rules, the historical ethical conflict between individual rights and the guarantee of social rights, mainly the right to health, in both realities.